from my stool and put on my own hat. The next time he came he was more polite. I have now had two years of it, and have not been absent for a day. I hope I may go on till I drop. My father died in a fit; his father died in a fit; and I myself often feel giddy, and things go round for a few seconds. I should not care to have a fit here, because there would be a fuss and a muddle, but I should like, just when everything was _quite_ straight, to be able to get home safely and then go off. To lie in bed for weeks and worry about my work is what I could not endure. CONFESSIONS OF A SELF-TORMENTOR MY father was a doctor in a country town. Strictly speaking it was not a town, and yet it was something more than a village. His practice extended over a district with a radius of five or six miles from his house; he drove a gig and dispensed his own medicines. My mother was the youngest daughter of a poor squire who owned two or three hundred acres and lived at what was called the Park, which was really nothing more than two or three fields generally laid for hay, a small enclosure being reserved for a garden. We were not admitted into county society, and my mother would not associate with farmers and tradesfolk. She was a good woman, affectionate to her children and husband, but never forgot that—so she thought—she had married below her station. She had an uncle who had been in the Indian Army, and his portrait in full regimentals hung in the dining-room. How her heart warmed to the person who inquired who that officer was! When she went home, it was never to her ‘home,’ but to the ‘Park.’